


A new friendship

by SilverWolf96



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)
Genre: Briefly Mentioned Racism, Coffee, F/M, Friendship, Gossip, M/M, Post-Canon, Robotnik is back, Some Fluff, Stone and Maddie are now friends, Strangers to Friends, Talking, Talking at a cafe after getting left behind by husbands and a hedgehog, mentioned implied homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25389199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverWolf96/pseuds/SilverWolf96
Summary: Stone and Maddie form a friendship after they find out they actually have quite a bit in common.
Relationships: Agent Stone & Maddie Wachowski, Dr. Eggman | Dr. Robotnik/Agent Stone, Maddie Wachowski/Tom Wachowski
Comments: 12
Kudos: 78





	A new friendship

**Author's Note:**

> Post movie. Robotnik is back. He and Stone are married. Maddie and Tom have more or less adopted Sonic. Robotnik still chases after and tries to catch Sonic if they see each other, but more out of habit than actually trying to kill him. They both enjoy the challenge.   
> Enjoy, and please let me know what you think!

### A new friendship

It all starts as a normal morning, as Stone and Robotnik are going to a local café to get some coffee. It’s just past noon, the sun is shining down from a cloud free sky, and a familiar blue hedgehog and two humans have just arrived in their car. And then chaos happens.

“Hedgehog!”

“Eggman!”

“Sonic, wait! Don’t run off by yourself!”

And they’re all gone, leaving Stone and Tom Wachowski’s wife (whose name Stone doesn’t know) more or less stranded on the side of the road. 

Stone looks around for a bit, seeing nothing but the road, some trees and shrubs, a mouse peeking out from said shrub, and the café they were supposed to take their break at. He looks down at the ground, resisting the urge to rub his temples. Robotnik running off without warning is not something uncommon, and he’s more or less gotten used to it, but that doesn’t mean it won’t give him a headache every time it happens. 

“Hello, there!” When Stone looks up, he notices the woman has started approaching him. She has a friendly, if somewhat strained smile on her face, and gives him a small wave. “I’m Maddie,” she introduces herself as she reaches Stone. 

“Aban,” Stone replies, shaking her hand and giving her a smile in return. Her grip is firm and confident. “How are you?”

“Well,” Maddie replies, shaking her head. “My husband just took off after a hedgehog and left me here. Waiting for him to come back, because he took the car.”

“I know the feeling,” Stone replies, nodding his head. 

“You too, huh?” Maddie looks at him with something resembling a mix of sympathy and the understanding of having something in common. 

“Yeah,” Stone replies, looking around once again, thinking. It will probably be a while before the Doctor is back, and there’s nothing really to do but wait, so - “Want to grab a coffee while we wait for them to come back?” he asks Maddie, gesturing to the café. 

“Sure, why not? I could use a coffee,” Maddie agrees, and they enter the café. 

It’s a fairly small, cosy place, with light walls and big windows, making it look bigger and lighter. There are a few people there, a young couple drinking from the same mug, an older woman looking at the menu, and a young man working on his computer in a corner. They go to the counter, getting in line behind the old woman who just finishes paying for her order and wandering off to find a table to wait for her order.

“Hello!” Maddie greets the employee, a teenage boy maybe around sixteen or seventeen. “I’ll have an espresso with cream, and a bagel, please.” 

“I’ll have a cappuccino, a double-caramel latte with cream, extra hot, and two pieces of chocolate fudge cake, please!” Stone orders next, getting Robotnik’s order while he’s at it. Maddie gives him a surprised look, to which he just shrugs. 

“Will you be paying together or separately?” the employee asks when he’s finished taking their orders. 

“Separately,” Stone informs her, Maddie nodding in agreement. It’s not like they’re on a date or something.

They finish paying and settle down at a nearby table to wait for their orders. They do some small talk while waiting, and Stone starts folding his napkin in different kinds of shapes to pass the time. Soon they notice the old woman has gotten up from her chair and is approaching them with an upset look on her face. 

Stone and Maddie look at each other, already expecting something stupid. 

“It’s very bad manners to make your girlfriend pay for her own drink and pastry, young man,” the woman tells Stone with the most disapproving look on her face. “Especially when you order double for yourself. That’s no way to treat a nice, young woman on a date.”

Stone and Maddie both turn to stare at each other, confused for a moment before they realize what she’s saying, before turning back to the woman and bursting out laughing.

“We’re not dating!” Stone manages to blurt out at the woman, who’s now staring at them both in shock. 

“I’m married!” Maddie informs her, holding up her hand with the wedding ring clearly visible. 

“I’m gay!” Stone informs her. “And married! My second order is for my husband!”

The woman looks back and forth between them, mouth hanging open in shock, before noticing the entire café is now staring at her. She manages to somewhat compose herself, huff with indignation and walk off out of the café. Without her coffee, which she never got. 

“People are so weird!” Stone manages to choke out between the laughing. “Why would she think it’s any of her business, even if we were on a date?”

“Because some people have really outdated ideas on how dating works, and that they need to butt into everyone’s relationship,” Maddie informs him, as if he didn’t already know it. “I can’t tell you how many people have felt the need to comment on me being married to a white cop.”

“Probably the same people who feel the need to comment on me dating a white man fifteen years older than me,” Stone says, shrugging. “It’s best to just ignore them, usually. People see something they see as “weird” or “unusual” or even “freakish” and feel the need to give complete strangers their unwanted opinion on their relationship. Some guy once thought he was being nice by telling me slavery is illegal and that I don’t have to keep obeying Ivo.”

“People can be so dumb,” Maddie agrees. “A man once asked Tom is he’s upset his black wife makes more money than he does. It gets pretty annoying after a while. Tom sometimes has to tall them off if they try to keep going.”

“Don’t I know it,” Stone agrees. “Ivo gets protective and sometimes threatens to kill people if they keep saying asshole things. Hell, when we first got together, the first thing he did was tell people he would handle them if they harass me over our relationship!”

“That sounds...” Maddie sounds almost a bit concerned as she looks at Stone. “That sounds almost more possessive than protective...”

“It does, and it kind of is, at least a bit,” Stone admits, knowing she’s technically right. “But it works, and where we work, there’s far too many higher-ups who have problems with relationships like ours and would fire me for it in a heartbeat.” Unfortunate, but true. Stone has even seen it happen to another two Agents who got together.

“Your higher-ups sound like real pieces of work,” Maddie says, determinedly, but doesn’t elaborate, probably knowing there isn’t really anything she can add that he doesn’t already know. Stone takes the moment to look at the time, finding out they’ve already been here for half-an-hour. 

“Speaking of dating,” she says after a few moments. “I didn’t know you and Robotnik were a thing. When did that happen?” She sounds understandably curious, since Robotnik really doesn’t come off as the type of person to date, much less marry someone. 

“It just kind of... happened over time,” Stone settles for after a few moments of thinking. It’s a surprisingly difficult question. “It’s complicated. I can’t say exactly when we first got together, but we’ve been married for eight months now.” 

He pulls out the ring from a slim silver chain around his neck to show her. It’s a simple platinum band with a small emerald. On the inside the words “For my Loved One” are carved in cursive writing. He usually doesn’t wear it at work, not wanting it to get damaged or lost, and sometimes forgetting to put it back on. 

“That is so sweet,” Maddie says, looking at the ring. “I never thought he could be like that. No offence,” she adds, noticing that might sound like a jerkish thing to tell someone about their husband. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Stone reassures her as he slides the ring on his finger. “He doesn’t really seem very sweet at first glance. Or even second glance. It took quite a while before we got to this point.” He’s quiet for a bit, remembering how cold and distant Robotnik had seemed before they got to know each other. “I used to believe he’s the type of person who live on black coffee and spite and nothing else.”

“I’m a bit surprised he’s not, to be honest.” Maddie says. “I’ll never understand people who can actually stomach those super sweet coffees. I swear, when Tom makes coffee, it’s more sugar than actual coffee!”

They’re interrupted briefly by their orders being delivered. They thank the teen, taking a moment to sip their drinks and nibble on their snacks before continuing to hold a conversation. Stone puts the second drink and piece of cake he ordered for Robotnik to the side to wait for the man to show up. 

“So,” Maddie starts up the conversation again. “Tell me about your wedding. Or the proposal.” She grins from ear to ear as she takes a sip from her drink. “I want to know what kind of romantic gestures your Dr. Robotnik is capable off.” Despite the teasing way she asks, Stone can tell she’s genuinely curious, and wanting to know more about him and his husband. 

“Well, it wasn’t really anything grand, neither the proposal nor the wedding.” Stone has to think back for a moment, taking the opportunity to sip his drink for a bit before continuing. “He pretty much just got home one day and asked me if I wanted to get married. Said that since we’ve been together so long and are already living together, might as well get the tax benefits and all that. Not the most romantic proposal, but it was very him, so I couldn’t say no. At least he had a ring when he asked.”

“Well, it was definitely a pretty unique proposal,” Maddie offers. “And the ring is very nice. When Tom proposed to me, he actually forgot the ring somewhere, so he was in the middle of this really nice speech when he suddenly had to interrupt himself to spend nearly half an hour to remember where he put it.” They both laugh. 

“As for the wedding...” Stone continues answering her questions. “Well, it was a really small, short ceremony, followed by a dinner and s bit of music and dancing. Since we don’t really have friends and Ivo doesn’t have any family, it was just us and my parents and sisters. It was fun, though.”

“That sounds pretty nice,” Maddie say, listening carefully as she finishes her drink and bagel. “Our wedding wasn’t nearly so simple, with both our families and a bunch of friends attending, plus the fact that my sister doesn’t like Tom, like, at all.”

“How come?” Stone asks, curious. As far as he can tell, Tom Wachowski seems to be a kind-hearted, if a bit goofy, man. 

“Mainly because he’s a cop,” Maddie admits. “She’s been reading a lot of those articles about cops killing black people, and thinks Tom is also one of them. The other reason is that he accidentally spilled some red wine on her white carpet ten years ago. She’s really good at holding a grudge.”

“Well that’s... something,” Stone offers, not really sure what to say. Does this woman’s sister really think she’s stupid enough to marry a racist cop? He's only knowh her for about an hour, but even he knows she's way too smart for that. The wine thing just sounds a bit silly, to be honest. 

“Yeah, it is,” Maddie agrees with a sigh. “Sometimes I feel like she’s jealous, because her boyfriend didn’t stick around when she got pregnant. Visiting her and Jojo is always so difficult, because of that. I wish they could just get along, even a little bit.” She sighs again, dragging her fingers through her hair wearily. 

“But enough about that,” she quickly bounces back to being curious and cheerful. “How did your family react when they met Robotnik? He doesn’t seem like the kind of person to immediately make a good impression on strangers.”

“Well, that’s true,” Stone admits. “They didn’t say anything to him and tried to get along with him the first few times they met, but then they would also pull me aside later and ask me if I’m _absolutely sure_ this is the man I love and want to be in a relationship with.” He laughs a bit at the memory. “I’m pretty sure they thought I was dating some kind of psychopath. Him being my boss didn’t help, either.”

“How did that work out, then?” Maddie asks, leaning forward over the table to listen to him talking, arms crossed on the table in front of her. 

“Well, the main thing was that Ivo isn’t really comfortable with being soft, or nice or in any way vulnerable around people he doesn’t know well,” Stone explains. “So when they “accidentally” caught us slow dancing in the living room in the middle of the night, they quickly changed their minds.” Stone smiles as he recalls the evening, the dancing, Ivo’s sweetness and finally getting his family to accept their relationship.

“That’s almost making me change my mind about him,” Maddie says, now smiling along Stone. The she gets serious again. “But I’m not going to forget that he tries to kill us!”

“I know,” Stone says, looking back at her apologetically. That’s reasonable, at least in his opinion. “Sorry about that.”

“Apology accepted,” Maddie says, shrugging. “Seems like we’re moving beyond that already, anyway.” Which isn’t exactly not true, since Robotnik is chasing Sonic around and no-one seems to be actually trying to kill anyone or send them to other planets in other universes anymore. 

“Well, that’s good,” Stone says. Maddie gives him a look that makes him wonder if that really was the right thing to say. 

“Well, he’s not trying to kill us anymore, I suppose,” she admits after a few moments. “But I do wish he would stop chasing Sonic around every time they see each other.” 

“To be fair,” Stone tries to defend his husband just a little bit. “I think he’s mostly just curious to how Sonic works. When he brags about being a genius, he isn’t just making things up, there really aren’t many things he doesn’t know or understand. But it would be a lot easier if he would just talk about it like a normal, human person,” he quickly adds when Maddie gives him another look.

“Well, I suppose Sonic at least seems to enjoy it. Getting to run around without having to hold back. Gets rid of a lot of extra energy, too,” Maddie admits quietly. “And Tom is just stupidly thinking he can actually keep up with that.”

“Hmmm,” Stone hums, thinking through the situation. “And Ivo, I think, likes the chance to test out his machines and how they perform in speed and endurance,” he adds, noticing that there really isn’t any antagonism left between Ivo and Sonic. 

“It would be nice if they could just learn to communicate and figure out a way they can both get what they want, without all this drama,” he muses quietly. “As much as I’ve enjoyed having coffee and conversation with you,” he tells Maddie with an amused smile, “I’d prefer if it wasn’t because we’re stuck in the middle of nowhere because of our husbands and a hedgehog.”

“That’s true,” Maddie agrees with him. “Sounds like we need to be the sensible ones this time, though. Because there’s no way those three are going to come up with anything themselves.” 

And she’s absolutely right. Stone just cannot imagine Ivo sitting down and talking to Tom and Sonic on how to keep up their “exercise routine” without leaving Stone and Maddie abandoned somewhere or otherwise inconvenienced.

They’re soon interrupted by the sound of two cars pulling in in front of the café. Robotnik exits from one of the cars, Tom and Sonic from the other. They seem to be arguing about something, but Stone can’t make out the words from inside the café. Maddie also notices them.

“Well, it’s about time they show up,” she says, putting aside her cup and reaching for a napkin and a pen. She scribbles down a number on it and hands it to Stone. “Here, let’s do this again sometime. Keep in touch!” 

With that, she exits the café, brushing past Robotnik and greets Tom with a kiss and ruffles Sonic’s fur. They leave soon after. Robotnik enters the café and makes his way to Stone. 

“Hello, Doctor,” Stone stands up to greet the man with a kiss. “I ordered for you already,” he adds when he doesn’t get an answer, gesturing to the still warm latte and piece of cake. 

“Hmmm,” Robotnik leans in for a second kiss, settling his hands on Stone’s waist. “I have some new ideas I need to try out when we get back,” he mutters against Stone’s lips. 

_Of course he’d be thinking about work_ , Stone thinks, smiling.

“Why don’t we have a break first, you enjoy your drink and cake, and tell me about your new ideas?”


End file.
